LEDE -- A customer plays a slot machine at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif in 2003. The Brown administration and tribe recently negotiated a 5,500-slot machine compact that awaits ratification by the Legislature. AP

LEDE -- A customer plays a slot machine at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif in 2003. The Brown administration and tribe recently negotiated a 5,500-slot machine compact that awaits ratification by the Legislature. AP

AM Alert: Hearing set for Brown’s deals with tribes

A decade after an end-of-session battle pitted some leading tribes with casinos against organized labor, look for more convivial discussions today at a legislative hearing on casino compacts recently negotiated by the Brown administration.

The Senate Governmental Organization Committee will hold an informational hearing on agreements with eight tribes, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in room 4203 at the Capitol. The agreements must be ratified by the Legislature to take effect.

An agreement with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, which runs Cache Creek Casino Resort in Yolo County, limits the number of slot machines it can operate to 3,500 and calls on the tribe to pay the state more than $33 million a year. Agreements with the the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians near Temecula, and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, which also will be reviewed today, have the support of a key casino workers union that opposed the tribes’ August 2006 pacts.

Representatives of the tribes, labor unions and governor’s office are scheduled to testify to the committee about each compact.

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